I'm sitting on my bed surrounded by clutter which in 48 hours will, along with me, be halfway across the North Atlantic.  I'm in the final stages of packing for a three-week adventure in northern India which will involve:  New Year's Eve celebrations in Mumbai (barring severe jet lag and an impending terrorist attack), a 16-hour train ride into the heart of Gujarat, two weeks volunteering at a small hospital's annual medical camp, sightseeing in Rajasthan, the Taj Mahal, New Delhi in a day, and Amsterdam in even less.  I've never been anywhere as impoverished yet culturally rich as India and I can't wait to arrive.  I would have liked to have planned out more details in advance, but I don't know yet when I'll be leaving the medical camp to begin my solitary wandering.

I've had some great advice from friends and strangers who have already explored this breathtaking country, and I'm thankful for all the tips that have prepared me for what I'm about to experience.  I never would have thought, for example, to bring my own toilet paper with me on vacation, or to avoid wearing shorts in 40C weather.  I've also had a lot of fun reading my guidebook, learning valuable tips such as "If you have an accident, it might be an idea to leave the scene quickly and go straight to the police to report it ; mobs can assemble fast, especially if pedestrians or cows are involved."

I decided to revive my blog while I'm away so that friends and family can follow my travels and so that mom and dad will know that I'm safe and sound and won't need to worry.  I don't know how often I'll have internet access, but I'll update as often as I can.  In 36 hours I'll be on my way to the airport...

Last year my parents and I went on a road trip to Tadoussac, QC. We had a great time whale-watching in a small rubber zodiac with the whales surfacing on all sides. The town is tiny and quaint with a few cafes and restaurants, one bank, and several B&Bs. English is not widely spoken, even at the restaurants, despite the fact that tourism is the only real industry.

This year, we decided to go back with a few more family members, and I've been in charge of planning the trip. Most French websites have fairly decent English translations, but with online translators being much less expensive than human ones, the English on these sites isn't always up to par. I was amused and baffled by some of this hotel's add-ons:

"Renting of facilities and materiels full air; framing of activities full nature for group of 4 to 12 peoples.( Mountain bike, Nautic Bike(Surfbike), etc.)"

I have no clue what that is.  They seem to be trying very hard to find words to describe whatever the nautic bike is, but it still doesn't ring a bell to me.

"The booking and the obtaining of embarking tickets on all types of boats for the excursions to the observation of the whales"

 I've never seen "whale-watching tours" described so elaborately before.

And just in case any of that wasn't clear, they end with this:

"For more informations, call or writting us..."

I ended up calling and practicing my French, which was probably as ridiculous to them as their English translations were to me.  As long as we get our mutual points across, all is well.

The more detailed information under the "Modes of Booking" section is mind-boggling:

For a demand of booking: Please print and to complete the following form ant to route it to us. For a reason of security; to route, it either by fax machine or by the post office...

This authorization is only in guarantee and no cashed will be done; safe, if you omit to present you at the agreed date.This Visa cashed authorization is equivalent to 100% of the one night value. For a fast booking and without form( Your name and your telephone number is ok.) ; we can garantee to maintain the so-called booking until 18h00 the day of arrival, no more than that. For the annulment of a no booking charges or penalty won't be required you; it will simply be about us of it aware...

I've got a feeling this is going to be a fun trip!

I just spent a wonderful day biking around the Old Port of Montreal and Ile Sainte-Helene. I took my camera with me, as I have a growing passion for photography, and I had just finished posting my photos on flickr (http://www.flickr.com/photos/tulloch) when I noticed something strange. One of my photos of a guy river surfing in Montreal was receiving a larger number of views than I would expect, so thanks to flickr stats, I followed the source of the hits to a Japanese surfing website:

http://isonoura.com/

Somehow the website had posted my pic within minutes of it being uploaded onto flickr! Will I become a famous surfing photographer in Japan? Watch for me as a rising star in the upcoming months...

WARNING: the following is nothing more than a rant which will probably be erased once I come to my senses.

I've spent the past few days shopping for a last-minute car rental to visit some friends in Boston this week. I'm starting to realize why I'm partial to National and Alamo...no hassles, good service, good rates, and you pay what you owe them, and nothing more. Most other companies with comparable rates give 200 free km and charge an arm and a leg for extra km. Who can leave town with this kind of deal? All other companies that offer unlimited km have much higher rates and will hold a ridiculous amount on your credit card until a week after you return the car, which means your holiday budget gets axed until you're back home.

My experience with Dollar Rent A Car has been nothing but frustrating. My usual companies were sold out, and this was the only one within my budget. First of all, their website does not work. After a minute or two, the website stops responding. No refreshing, backtracking or changing pages. Nothing works. On top of this, the browser stops working altogether and you can't even open any other websites with it. Nothing you can do but close the window and open a new session, hoping that you can make it to the end of the reservation process without the same thing happening again. You can forget about modifying your trip or printing out the reservation--these functions are far too complicated for the Dollar website and will certainly freeze the browser.

My second big complaint is that no one can tell me how much I can expect to have held on my credit card as an authorization. The call center in Florida gave me two different answers on my three separate calls: amount of the rental plus 20% of the rental vs. $200 plus 20% of the rental. The printout of my reservation is somewhat ambiguous and can be interpreted in two different ways and I would appreciate any insight on how to read this:

"Estimated rental charges plus 20% or 200.00 whichever is greater."

so is that (Estimated rental charges plus 20%) or (200.00) whichever is greater, or is it (Estimated rental charges) plus (20% or 200.00 whichever is greater)? A little more punctuation would have been of great assistance here.

A call to the actual pickup location shed no light on the answer, as he said in mumbled French something like "300 to 250...bla bla bla...we'll see tomorrow"...click. I guess I'll be in for a delightful surprise tomorrow.

The moral of the story: don't procrastinate!

I was having a melancholic sort of night and couldn't quite bring myself to go home to an empty apartment after work, so I decided to pass some time in the few shops that were still open after 6pm on a Saturday night in Montreal. This meant 20 min at Indigo books, then another 20 min at Chapters a few blocks further. I set my ipod on shuffle, but rather than bombard me with the countless pop and r&b tunes I've got loaded up, it chose tonight to find all the depressing music that it never EVER chooses to play any other time (Sarah McLachlan, Imogen Heap, etc). As my mood rapidly deteriorated I decide to pick up my bike and walk it home.

It was at this point that someone handed me a flyer. I usually jump at the chance to grab these things because they make great bookmarks for the 4-5 books that I've got going at any one point in time (and so far this year I've only managed to collect 2 bookmarks: a napkin from Second Cup and a 5¢ bill from Canadian Tire). Most flyers advertise one of three things: clothes, nightclubs, or religion and at this time of the night I was betting on a 2-for-1 beer special. To my surprise I had stumbled upon a late-evening sidewalk crusade (I thought this stuff only happened south of the border these days). My pamphlet informed me that I wasn't satisfied (no kidding), but that I could be... Since I'm all-too familiar with the content of these things I skipped to the end to see whose message it was that I was reading (never found out...acronyms aren't very telling) and was surprised by the final paragraph.

Although all of these tracts understandably tell you what you need to believe in order to 'make Jesus-Christ your Saviour and personal Lord' (as if this means anything intelligible to people who didn't grow up in the church), this one took it a step further. I had to laugh out loud (redeeming my mood for the evening) when I read what came next: "This has to be done with an audible voice as follow:[sic]"
Seriously??? So God can no longer know our thoughts or hear our silent prayers? Salvation has never been easier, nor more technical. The lesson here is that silent prayers are just plain old-school these days, so if God doesn't seem to be answering your prayers, try saying them out loud...outdoors, just to be on the safe side.

I've been out of town a few times this summer and I've tried to maintain a moderate level of exercise despite being on vacation. I've had some success, but also ran into a few bizarre and unexpected difficulties.

While visiting my parents' new home in Levack, I decided I'd like to get in some swimming practice at the small local pool. I went online and was delighted to find out that the pool had a public swim the following morning at 9am. I got a decent sleep, packed my supplies, googled directions to the pool and headed out bright and early the next morning before everyone except mom had woken up.

My over-confidence (not to mention my Y chromosome) led me to take an improvised shortcut not on the map, resulting in me getting lost in one of the smallest villages in northern Ontario, so I asked a woman for directions and found my way to the pool. The fact that the parking lot was entirely empty except for my car should have raised some concern, but I was too excited about plunging into the cool water to give it much thought. The nearest entrance was to the attached community library, and was locked up tight, so I started to make my way around the building in search of the pool entrance when a lady rushed across the parking lot from a nearby house. Instead of being a fellow swimmer, she turned out to be the librarian waiting for the 'tech guy' to arrive from Vancouver, who normally shows up in a mini-van much like the one I borrowed from my parents. It was a case of mistaken identity, however she showed me to the pool entrance where we were both surprised to find a sign on the locked door which announced that the pool would be closed for the summer! Imagine a pool closing for the summer holidays. No swim for me that trip.

A few weeks later in Toronto I decided to get in a workout at the YMCA downtown, but it turned out to be more frustrating than satisfying. After searching the room 3 times over, there seemed to be only one 30 lb dumbell, so I downgraded to 27.5 lbs that day.

The weight machines on the upper level proved to be an even greater challenge since someone in their great wisdom decided to label the weights from 1-15 instead of labeling them with their actual weight. No one I asked could tell me whether each one weighed 10 or 15 lbs. Apparently it didn't matter to anyone there how much weight they were actually lifting.

On top of all of this, the only water fountain that worked was on the first floor, so each time I needed a drink, I had to climb from the 5th floor weight room down four flights of stairs and back.

As frustrating as it can be exercising away from the comforts of home, the benefits are always worth the challenge--and you can return home with a greater appreciation for what you've already got.

In my last post I used the expression "with flying colours" and was curious about where it came from. A quick google search revealed that when a successful sailing fleet would return home from business/war they would still have their flags flying at full mast. This led to the expression "with flying colours" referring to any great success. It's been used as an expression since around 1700.

http://www.phrases.org.uk/bulletin_board/7/messages/324.html

I love exercise. I love how it makes me feel in the moment and for hours afterward. I love what it does for my mind and body. I love knowing that its effects will last long into the future.

I was really disappointed a year ago when I found out I needed hernia surgery--not because I would have to undergo surgery, but because I would have to stop exercising for a few months afterward. Last summer passed with very few jogs or bike rides and no tennis whatsoever. I managed to do a bit of swimming and I used my bike to get to and from work at an easy pace. It was hard to get motivated again when I finally felt ready to exercise, so I joined the YMCA and enrolled in swimming lessons.

I put myself into level 3 which I enjoyed, but did not pass. My whip-kick was not actually a whip-kick and my breathing was seriously lacking. I put the lessons aside for most of the school year and moved back to level 2 a few months ago, which I passed with flying colours (where does that expression come from?). Unfortunately I haven't practiced for weeks and I may have lost the techniques I picked up in class. I'm planning to take level 3 again sometime soon.

In the time since I passed level 2, spring arrived and I began running outside. In the past I've run to the Mount-Royal and up to the Chalet and back, however this season I decided to run across the Jacques-Cartier bridge which begins .5 km from my apartment. It has two long, gradual hills along its length and I run on a designated walking/running/biking path hanging over the edge of the bridge. No intersections, no cars, a cool breeze and a magnificent view of the entire city. 5.5k of uninterrupted running.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacques_Cartier_Bridge

I mention all of this because I've recently set a life goal of running the Ironman triathlon during my 40th year. That gives me 10 years to train and run some smaller triathlons in preparation. My friends have been great inspirations to me as several of them are already involved in triathlon and marathon training. I enjoy all three triathlon events, so I decided to combine them and begin training myself. We've decided to create an online forum where we can discuss our training plans and help motivate each other.

I'm still in the process of whipping my ass into shape before I start to follow actual training schedules. I really need to improve my diet and start eating more nutritious food. I also need to develop my water breathing so that I can last long enough in the pool to swim more than a few laps before suffocating.

I plan to keep a record of my training here since I haven't found any other real use for my blog so far. It's probably a lot more for myself than for reader interest, but I'll try to spice it up along the way.

So apparently my last post was 17 weeks ago, and if I remember correctly I was trying to post a link to a site which gives you a live image of the earth (flat, not a globe) showing which parts are lit up and which are in darkness. It's a great site, so perhaps someday I'll stumble across it again.

I did the WAIS-III IQ test yesterday and I'm eagerly anticipating my results, although I won't actually get my IQ score back. I volunteered my 'brain' to the clinical psychology MA programme at my university so that students can practice administering the WAIS-III IQ inventory. I've always wanted to know my IQ score, but since it was her first time ever giving the test, she's not authorized to give me my score (I guess she won't be very accurate in scoring and doesn't want to risk giving me the wrong one).

I'm fiercely competitive when it comes to demonstrating my intellectual abilities, so I'm pissed that I didn't do better on some of the tasks (as soon as I left I remembered who Catherine the Great was--dammit--I could have continued on to bigger and better questions). I'll keep you posted on the results, as vague as they're going to be.

Last semester I volunteered to have a second-year MA student assess my personality with a series of scales. I thought I would get to do the Rorschach inkblot test, but apparently it's not used much outside of psychoanalytic circles. Instead, they show you drawings of a situation and you have to explain (1) What just happened preceding the sketch, (2) What is happening in the sketch (thoughts/feelings of characters), and (3) what will happen to the characters in the future. Most of my stories were tales of betrayal, illicit sex and murder, so I was worried that my diagnosis would come back: Psychopath--send police ASAP. Fortunately, all of my stories (as disturbing as they were) ended in socially appropriate ways so I'm still a free man, just an emotionally perceptive one with issues that won't be discussed here ;)

Not a bad post, maybe there's hope for me after all...